Performers stand on a small stage called "Caigui" and display fragments of Han folk tales or fairy tales in the form of a parade. The magic lies in that the actors stand in the air through carefully disguised steel branches, supported by invisible colored stalks, and use ingenious mechanical principles to create a "floating" effect.
Gone with the wind means to leave the ground and show the beauty of the air. Color (original meaning is decoration) is a subtle disguise. The so-called floating color is that several people push a beautifully decorated "color board" with figures in fixed postures arranged on it.
It is said that the floating color in Guangdong originated from Ganwu Town, Doumen, Zhuhai in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, and experienced two stages of "color change" and "color change". Color change is to install a wooden iron shaft in the middle of the car and put a perforated plate that can rotate in the middle on it. One or two people dressed in various shapes (these characters are called "demon colors") stand on this board. The plate color makes the characters sit on the "colorful stage" fixedly, and the costumes are more gorgeous, and the number of characters has also increased to four.
It's hard to know when it floated, but local artists have a saying: After the failure of the Taiping Rebellion, in western Guangdong, Cantonese opera artists came up with the idea of making a piece of Cantonese opera into a shape, which was carried to celebrate during the Lantern Festival and gradually passed down. From the historical source, floating color is also the original activity of farmers praying for gods to eliminate disasters and evil spirits, protect health and look forward to a bumper year.
The modeling theme of Gone with the Wind is mostly taken from historical allusions, legends and figures, which mostly shows the simple desire of farmers to worship good and punish evil, live and work in peace and contentment, praise heroes and lash out at the wicked. However, due to social changes, in the 1970s, many local young people no longer knew what Gone with the Wind was, and this precious folk cultural heritage was facing extinction. In the early 1980s, Xinyi's floating color was rescued and restored.
At first, the art of floating colors in faith was based on fairy tales and some typical plots of classical traditional dramas, such as Learning from the Tang Priest, Getting Married in Taoyuan, and Yue Bai's Lost Heart Story. Later, it gradually infiltrated into dance and acrobatic modeling, and floated in the air, such as the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon, Passage of the Sea, Making a scene in Heaven, etc., which made the content and form increasingly colorful. Floating colors are lifelike and confusing, which makes the audience amazed and deeply loved by the people. Every year, from the Spring Festival to the Lantern Festival or festive festivals, it is performed in western Guangdong with a long history.